Comoros President Ikililou Dhoinine has called on the international community to assist the Democratic Republic of Congo to end the conflict ravaging east of the central African nation.

Dhoinine made the remarks on Sunday in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, where he as well as fourteen other heads of state of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF)’s 75 member countries gathered last week for the Francophonie Summit, Xinhua reported on Monday.

He called on the international community to help Kinshasa restore peace in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu in the eastern Congo and reap the benefits of peace by exploiting Congo’s vast mineral reserves.

“We have given our opinion regarding the aggression, that DR Congo has been a victim... and we hope that the international community will help to resolve the problem,” Dhoinine said before leaving Kinshasa.

He also expressed hope that the IOF would help President Joseph Kabila, who hosted the summit, implement all the resolutions that were adopted during the meeting.

In a speech to the summit, the Congolese president spoke about “an unjust war imposed by outsiders” in the east of the country.

“While our people are sparing no effort to improve their lives, negative forces beholden to outside interests have for several months worked to destabilize our country in North Kivu province,” on the eastern border with Rwanda, Kabila told participants at the summit.

Since early May, over 220,000 civilians have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. Most of them have resettled inside Congo, but tens of thousands have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.


The March 23 movement (M23) rebels defected from the Congolese army in April in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.

The mutiny is being led by General Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on a charge of recruiting child soldiers.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.5 million people dead.
Press TV